Google has just unveiled the newest feature to their popular GMail service’s voice calling capabilities: the ability to easily record incoming calls. It’s a nifty feature, but it could end up proving to be a hot issue not just for privacy advocates, but also possibly with federal authorities enforcing call recording laws.

The new feature was silently rolled out sometime over the weekend, and it works as easily as you’d expect. While it was possible to record calls through GMail before, the new feature allows you to just click a button and do it all locally, with no additional software required.

Google has yet to officially announce the feature, but it’s popping up in our GMail account, so it’s probably in yours too.

It’ll be interesting to see the ramifications of this play out. Most state laws say it’s illegal to record a call unless the party on the other end has been informed that they are being recorded, but usually that just prevents the recording from being used as evidence in court.

By making the feature only available for incoming calls, Google seems to be trying to avoid any accusation that they are allowing their users to use the feature to entrap others. Even if that’s successful, though, it makes having intimate conversations on Gmail calling harder, since you can’t quite be sure that your words won’t be used for some other purpose: a stray comment about a friend or family member could well end up in their inbox.

Still, as a journalist, I welcome this new feature, if only because VoIP call recording is probably the simplest way of conducting and transcribing interviews. If Gmail ever brings this feature to initiated calls, I might have a reason to finally switch from Skype for my interviewing.